'Warp drive' may be more feasible than thought, scientists say

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Space.com


http://i.imgur.com/jz1ld.jpg

A warp drive to achieve faster-than-light travel — a concept popularized in television's Star Trek — may not be as unrealistic as once thought, scientists say.

A warp drive would manipulate space-time itself to move a starship, taking advantage of a loophole in the laws of physics that prevent anything from moving faster than light. A concept for a real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre, however subsequent calculations found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy.

Now physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would enable it to run on significantly less energy, potentially brining the idea back from the realm of science fiction into science.

"There is hope," Harold "Sonny" White of NASA's Johnson Space Center said here Friday (Sept. 14) at the 100 Year Starship Symposium, a meeting to discuss the challenges of interstellar spaceflight.

Warping space-time

An Alcubierre warp drive would involve a football-shape spacecraft attached to a large ring encircling it. This ring, potentially made of exotic matter, would cause space-time to warp around the starship, creating a region of contracted space in front of it and expanded space behind.

Meanwhile, the starship itself would stay inside a bubble of flat space-time that wasn't being warped at all.

"Everything within space is restricted by the speed of light," explained Richard Obousy, president of Icarus Interstellar, a non-profit group of scientists and engineers devoted to pursuing interstellar spaceflight. "But the really cool thing is space-time, the fabric of space, is not limited by the speed of light."

With this concept, the spacecraft would be able to achieve an effective speed of about 10 times the speed of light, all without breaking the cosmic speed limit.

The only problem is, previous studies estimated the warp drive would require a minimum amount of energy about equal to the mass-energy of the planet Jupiter.

But recently White calculated what would happen if the shape of the ring encircling the spacecraft was adjusted into more of a rounded donut, as opposed to a flat ring. He found in that case, the warp drive could be powered by a mass about the size of a spacecraft like the Voyager 1 probe NASA launched in 1977.

Furthermore, if the intensity of the space warps can be oscillated over time, the energy required is reduced even more, White found.

"The findings I presented today change it from impractical to plausible and worth further investigation," White told SPACE.com. "The additional energy reduction realized by oscillating the bubble intensity is an interesting conjecture that we will enjoy looking at in the lab."

Laboratory tests

White and his colleagues have begun experimenting with a mini version of the warp drive in their laboratory.

They set up what they call the White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer at the Johnson Space Center, essentially creating a laser interferometer that instigates micro versions of space-time warps.

"We're trying to see if we can generate a very tiny instance of this in a tabletop experiment, to try to perturb space-time by one part in 10 million," White said.

He called the project a "humble experiment" compared to what would be needed for a real warp drive, but said it represents a promising first step.

And other scientists stressed that even outlandish-sounding ideas, such as the warp drive, need to be considered if humanity is serious about traveling to other stars.

"If we're ever going to become a true spacefaring civilization, we're going to have to think outside the box a little bit, were going to have to be a little bit audacious," Obousy said.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

http://i.imgur.com/RpC8q.jpg

[Acid Trip]

Except we'd warp astronauts to a different galaxy and then the damn thing would break. Good luck finding parts for the trip back.

[Muddy]

It'll take us 2500 years to do this..

[DemonGeminiX]

It'll take us 2500 years to do this..

Maybe not. New discoveries are being made exponentially faster. I'm not saying we'll live to see it, but who knows? Maybe our great-great-great-grandchildren's generation will solve the puzzle in a feasible way?

[Teh One Who Knocks]

It'll take us 2500 years to do this..


Maybe not. New discoveries are being made exponentially faster. I'm not saying we'll live to see it, but who knows? Maybe our great-great-great-grandchildren's generation will solve the puzzle in a feasible way?

I think Gene Roddenberry has it pretty close...Star Trek TOS took place in the years 2265-2269 and I think that would be just about right for us to have regular interstellar travel.

[FBD]

This ring, potentially made of exotic matter,

:hand: yeah yeah, that's been the problem the entire time, if we only had this exotic matter to create a dense enough field of negative energy...man, we'd be able to go real fast :lol:

[Hal-9000]

:hand:

stack 100 nuclear bombs, funnel the explosion through an opening the size of a pinhole, and have a dude strapped to chair on top :thumbsup:

[Muddy]

:hand:

stack 100 nuclear bombs, funnel the explosion through an opening the size of a pinhole, and have a dude strapped to chair on top :thumbsup:

At least someone has a viable plan.. :thumbsup:

[Hal-9000]

it's the distance of the stars like the article mentions...I know we all like to speculate but I don't think we can ever travel the vast distances like Lance mentioned by the 2200's...

[Muddy]

it's the distance of the stars like the article mentions...I know we all like to speculate but I don't think we can ever travel the vast distances like Lance mentioned by the 2200's...

Not without an oxygen mask strapped to the chair...

[Hal-9000]

Not without an oxygen mask strapped to the chair...

well duhhh yeah :lol:

[FBD]

it's the distance of the stars like the article mentions...I know we all like to speculate but I don't think we can ever travel the vast distances like Lance mentioned by the 2200's...

Remember, the enemy has only images and illusions, behind which he hides his true motives...destroy the image, and you will break the enemy :lol:

[Hal-9000]

:lol:

you've been snorting quantum foam again haven't you

[Goofy]

Except we'd warp astronauts to a different galaxy and then the damn thing would break. Good luck finding parts for the trip back.

:lol:


it's the distance of the stars like the article mentions...I know we all like to speculate but I don't think we can ever travel the vast distances like Lance mentioned by the 2200's...

Yep, and the earth is flat and we'll never travel to the moon :tup:

[FBD]

:lol:

you've been snorting quantum foam again haven't you

:lol: every day

[Hal-9000]

:lol:



Yep, and the earth is flat and we'll never travel to the moon :tup:


:slap:

Without using the chart above I know that the nearest star is 4.2 light years away. At a speed of 150,000 miles per hour from a passive slingshot maneuver, it would take about 17,900 years to reach this star.


So start doing the backwards math to trim that travel time down to one year for example.....your rate of propulsion must go up significantly. (150. 000 mile per hour X 17900 approx)

And this example is using a slingshot maneuver ffs to combine acceleration :lol:


In 100 years of using propelled vehicles, we have only managed to get to the moon. A VERY short distance comparatively. So you're saying my skepticism will be disproved in the next 200 years because we'll magically find a way to travel at the speeds I've hinted at above?


:rofl:

[Acid Trip]

:slap:

Without using the chart above I know that the nearest star is 4.2 light years away. At a speed of 150,000 miles per hour from a passive slingshot maneuver, it would take about 17,900 years to reach this star.


So start doing the backwards math to trim that travel time down to one year for example.....your rate of propulsion must go up significantly. (150. 000 mile per hour X 17900 approx)

And this example is using a slingshot maneuver ffs to combine acceleration :lol:


In 100 years of using propelled vehicles, we have only managed to get to the moon. A VERY short distance comparatively. So you're saying my skepticism will be disproved in the next 200 years because we'll magically find a way to travel at the speeds I've hinted at above?


:rofl:

Well, in his defense we've "magically" learned to fly, breathe underwater, explore the ocean depths, and travel to other heavenly bodies (Moon and Mars) in just over 100 years. Give us twice that amount of time and we'll do it.

[Hal-9000]

Here's another way to put it...you've heard that if you look up into the night sky, some stars are so far away that you're just now seeing the light emitted from them. They've actually burned out hundreds or thousands of years ago.And of course what we're seeing is 'light speed'.


So we'd have to devise a propulsion system that in effect, travels faster than the speed of light to even plot a course. Otherwise, the destination would change significantly. (like not be there anymore :lol:)


Aaaaand in a really funky, weird 60's vibe sort of way....what we're seeing when we look at stars...is a form of time travel :shock:




*looks for bong*

[Hal-9000]

Well, in his defense we've "magically" learned to fly, breathe underwater, explore the ocean depths, and travel to other heavenly bodies (Moon and Mars) in just over 100 years. Give us twice that amount of time and we'll do it.

You do work at a bank and are good with math/numbers?


so stop it right now :lol: ........vaaaaaast distances and incredible speeds my friend....in 200 years? I say......no based on what we've accomplished thus far. We've only made it to the moon (man), so ramping up the equation that much seems like more than a stretch. Even if we could propel a vehicle that fast, the key would be getting a human body there unharmed. Something about density increasing with velocity...

[Acid Trip]

You do work at a bank and are good with math/numbers?


so stop it right now :lol: ........vaaaaaast distances and incredible speeds my friend....in 200 years? I say......no based on what we've accomplished thus far. We've only made it to the moon (man), so ramping up the equation that much seems like more than a stretch. Even if we could propel a vehicle that fast, the key would be getting a human body there unharmed. Something about density increasing with velocity...

You don't need to travel great distances if you can learn to bend space and time. Worm holes or other space/time portals is the more likely approach to such great distances.

I'm just saying that if you went back 200 years nobody would believe the technology we have today and yet we do.

Besides, if aliens can do it so can we... :tinfoil:

[Hal-9000]

on an interesting side note....do you know that the recent probe to Mars only used propellant for the first, small part of the journey? It actually coasted due to momentum for 7 months.


If we created a vehicle that could travel at one billion miles per hour for argument's sake, then the ugly specter of decreasing velocity enters into the problem. We'd have to devise a method to hit the brakes, after traveling at 1000 times the speed of light.(or whatever the true math would be needed to travel the distance)

[Teh One Who Knocks]

http://i.imgur.com/DMLYK.gif

[Acid Trip]

on an interesting side note....do you know that the recent probe to Mars only used propellant for the first, small part of the journey? It actually coasted due to momentum for 7 months.


If we created a vehicle that could travel at one billion miles per hour for argument's sake, then the ugly specter of decreasing velocity enters into the problem. We'd have to devise a method to hit the brakes, after traveling at 1000 times the speed of light.(or whatever the true math would be needed to travel the distance)

:lol: Those would be some big ass brakes!

[Hal-9000]

weird...the chart above talks about the fastest man-made object being Voyager..


I wonder about this - The Galileo probe managed to get to about 106,000 miles per hour and currently holds the record for the fastest speed ever achieved by an artificial body.

[Hal-9000]

You don't need to travel great distances if you can learn to bend space and time. Worm holes or other space/time portals is the more likely approach to such great distances.

I'm just saying that if you went back 200 years nobody would believe the technology we have today and yet we do.

Besides, if aliens can do it so can we... :tinfoil:


Oh for sure and completely agree....we've made things that people even 100 years ago would be amazed to see. Scotland now has electricity and indoor plumbing...


*lookin right at Goof now* :lol:

[Teh One Who Knocks]

weird...the chart above talks about the fastest man-made object being Voyager..


I wonder about this - The Galileo probe managed to get to about 106,000 miles per hour and currently holds the record for the fastest speed ever achieved by an artificial body.

I found this: http://askingnlearning.com/blog/index.php/2007/10/26/what-is-the-fastest-man-made-objects/

They list the Helios probe, but also list Voyager as the fastest interplanetary vehicle ever made

[Hal-9000]

:lol: Those would be some big ass brakes!

You ever hear the one about the twin brothers? One guy stays on Earth while the other guy pilots a spaceship that can travel faster than light speed. Space-bro travels to Proxima Centauri at a speed so fast, he doesn't even grow a beard in the time he takes to get there and back. Space-bro returns to Earth and discovers that his brother is dead, along with all of his generation. Died of old age....


Can anyone here tell me why this occurs... or is this a false hypothesis and the space-bro just finds his bother a few hours older? ...because in reality, space-bro has only been gone for let's say 8 hours since he lifted off.

[Hal-9000]

I found this: http://askingnlearning.com/blog/index.php/2007/10/26/what-is-the-fastest-man-made-objects/

They list the Helios probe, but also list Voyager as the fastest interplanetary vehicle ever made

Yeah this is from the Nasa/gov site.....Galileo reached the speed doing the slingshot maneuver outside of Jupiter...


Q: How fast was the Galileo spacecraft going when it enters Jupiter's atmosphere?
A: The probe was traveling 108,000 miles per hour or 30 miles per second.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Yeah this is from the Nasa/gov site.....Galileo reached the speed doing the slingshot maneuver outside of Jupiter...


Q: How fast was the Galileo spacecraft going when it enters Jupiter's atmosphere?
A: The probe was traveling 108,000 miles per hour or 30 miles per second.

Maybe when it comes to the probes, they are talking about their average constant speed? :dunno:

[Hal-9000]

Maybe when it comes to the probes, they are talking about their average constant speed? :dunno:

I believe they must be....poor ol Galileo achieved that speed doing a hail Mary descent into hell :lol:

[Hal-9000]

you know...I love all things tech and space related (well durrrh, look at my username)...

but I've never understood the need for deep space travel. It costs literally billions and even if some here don't believe how far the nearest star systems are compared to ours...most should realize that getting a manned flight anywhere outside of our solar system, not even talking galaxies here now....is something we may never achieve in the next 500 years of our history.

So I wonder why....what will we possibly gain from traveling these vast distances at the cost of billions and trillions and quadzillions of dollars? I know we got Tang and velcro out of the moon missions, but if we're not going to bump into other life forms, what is the real point of making these incredibly expensive long distance flights?

[Lambchop]

Just build a Stargate system. It works, really well.

[DemonGeminiX]

you know...I love all things tech and space related (well durrrh, look at my username)...

but I've never understood the need for deep space travel. It costs literally billions and even if some here don't believe how far the nearest star systems are compared to ours...most should realize that getting a manned flight anywhere outside of our solar system, not even talking galaxies here now....is something we may never achieve in the next 500 years of our history.

So I wonder why....what will we possibly gain from traveling these vast distances at the cost of billions and trillions and quadzillions of dollars? I know we got Tang and velcro out of the moon missions, but if we're not going to bump into other life forms, what is the real point of making these incredibly expensive long distance flights?

Colonization. We spread across the universe and set up human franchises in star systems all over the place until we get to the edge of the universe so we can investigate what's there.

[Hal-9000]

Colonization. We spread across the universe and set up human franchises in star systems all over the place until we get to the edge of the universe so we can investigate what's there.

So Starbucks then? :lol:

Okay you mean discover other places to live? Possibly migrate to? I'm down with the idea of lots of other galaxies containing M class planets (to borrow a phrase), but we'll need to do a shitload of exploration to find them. In our little corner of the solar system, we have one planet out of nine (eight...whatever) that supports human life.

The distance from our sun to Pluto is 3.7 billion miles, and that's not even to the real edge of our solar system...just the nine planets we're comfortable with.I think we may need to discover a little more than warp speed if we're going hunting for new planets to inhabit.

[DemonGeminiX]

You're missing the bigger picture though. Sooner or later, our Sun will die, and it'll take out the first 3 or 4 planets with it... which means if we don't find another home, then hasta la vista baby, here doesn't lie the human race, because we've been incinerated into oblivion. Sooner or later, the universe will die (somehow), and if we don't find it's edge and see if we can't breach it, then hasta la vista, baby... but if we can, maybe we'll get to see where Larry Fishburne and Sam Neill got to.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

http://i.imgur.com/TsFkQ.jpg

[DemonGeminiX]

:cheers:

[FBD]

You're missing the bigger picture though. Sooner or later, our Sun will die, and it'll take out the first 3 or 4 planets with it... which means if we don't find another home, then hasta la vista baby, here doesn't lie the human race, because we've been incinerated into oblivion. Sooner or later, the universe will die (somehow), and if we don't find it's edge and see if we can't breach it, then hasta la vista, baby... but if we can, maybe we'll get to see where Larry Fishburne and Sam Neill got to.
heh. how does one find the edge of an ostensible sphere? the nature of the strings that make up normal matter are effectively glued to the 4brane. the answer is metaphysical and has to do with enlightenment - so the only way to get past the final collapse/bounce is to elevate oneself to a high enough/correct vibration so as to exist interdimensionally (no, extradimensionally - because our 4brane is more than just a 4brane) - aka the full and complete enlightenment. that is why the bodhisattva vow is for the enlightenment of all sentient beings, because if you dont get there by the time this loop of the universe is done, then you are also done, you get swept up in the great street sweep and are recycled. yes, your consciousness. it is no small matter. but the body is needed so as to fuel the spirit to get there. individual responsibility, baby!


:lol: Those would be some big ass brakes!would definitely need the exotic matter-drag to slow down and create the gravity well behind you.


You ever hear the one about the twin brothers? One guy stays on Earth while the other guy pilots a spaceship that can travel faster than light speed. Space-bro travels to Proxima Centauri at a speed so fast, he doesn't even grow a beard in the time he takes to get there and back. Space-bro returns to Earth and discovers that his brother is dead, along with all of his generation. Died of old age....


Can anyone here tell me why this occurs... or is this a false hypothesis and the space-bro just finds his bother a few hours older? ...because in reality, space-bro has only been gone for let's say 8 hours since he lifted off.that assumes an "objective time" - which has been disproven - we basically all carry our own clocks. this has already been proven with synchronized high altitude clocks vs land based - the time they went off was extremely small but in agreement with the theory. for normal matter, time and space bends as you approach relativistic speeds. same as if you were somehow able to drop a rope into the gravity well of a black hole (somehow without what's attached at the other end getting sucked through, or the 'rope' breaking) and go to just above the event horizon for a brief minute, you'd come back up to find that it took them quite awhile to retrieve you from there, more than the tiny amount of time you actually perceived spending down there. a gravity well is an accelerated frame of reference, same stuff happens as when traveling relativistic speeds.

[FBD]

thread killa :dance:

[FBD]

here ya go dgx

http://motls.blogspot.com/2012/09/stringy-boundary-conditions-and-d-branes.html

[Muddy]

thread killa :dance:

:qft:

[Hal-9000]

heh. how does one find the edge of an ostensible sphere? the nature of the strings that make up normal matter are effectively glued to the 4brane. the answer is metaphysical and has to do with enlightenment - so the only way to get past the final collapse/bounce is to elevate oneself to a high enough/correct vibration so as to exist interdimensionally (no, extradimensionally - because our 4brane is more than just a 4brane) - aka the full and complete enlightenment. that is why the bodhisattva vow is for the enlightenment of all sentient beings, because if you dont get there by the time this loop of the universe is done, then you are also done, you get swept up in the great street sweep and are recycled. yes, your consciousness. it is no small matter. but the body is needed so as to fuel the spirit to get there. individual responsibility, baby!

would definitely need the exotic matter-drag to slow down and create the gravity well behind you.

that assumes an "objective time" - which has been disproven - we basically all carry our own clocks. this has already been proven with synchronized high altitude clocks vs land based - the time they went off was extremely small but in agreement with the theory. for normal matter, time and space bends as you approach relativistic speeds. same as if you were somehow able to drop a rope into the gravity well of a black hole (somehow without what's attached at the other end getting sucked through, or the 'rope' breaking) and go to just above the event horizon for a brief minute, you'd come back up to find that it took them quite awhile to retrieve you from there, more than the tiny amount of time you actually perceived spending down there. a gravity well is an accelerated frame of reference, same stuff happens as when traveling relativistic speeds.

"you'd come back up to find that it took them quite awhile to retrieve you from there, more than the tiny amount of time you actually perceived spending down there. a gravity well is an accelerated frame of reference, same stuff happens as when traveling relativistic speeds."

bingo :thumbsup:

along with satellite clocks 'gaining speed', people next to large objects actually move slower through time than others...you know about that one too?

[FBD]

yessah, that's also embodied in the concept of a geodesic, which is the straightest path through spacetime, although its not necessarily a straight line - but another facet of it is that the geodesic is that it's "the shortest amount of time" one can travel for a given path (considering a many paths paradigm traveling from point a to point b). for material objects there's ostensibly only so much overall "spacetime speed" the object can have, a certain component to time and a certain component to space - so basically the slower you go, the faster time progresses on your clock, the faster you go, the slower your clock ticks. :thumbsup: